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Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Uncalendar Monthly planner

I've used Uncalendar Full Size and Half Size spiral bound and ring bound planners, but this is my first experience with their Monthly planner. As usual with Uncalendar, it doesn't disappoint! Uncalendars stand out from the planner crowd with their excellent Goal setting pages.

The Monthly planner is stripped-down and straightforward, while still retaining many of Uncalendar's excellent features.

Inside the front cover there is open space to brainstorm your goals for the year. The right page gives you structured space to break down those goals by month.

The huge monthly layout (page size 8 1/2 by 11 inches) gives you tons of room to write in your appointments and plans, and the spaces at the beginning of each week are great for reminders.

At the back there is an overview page to write in another year, and handy reference calendars.

Inside the back cover there is space to record contacts or other data.

That's it! For less than 5 bucks, this is a great calendar. I bought a bunch of them on uncalendar.com.

At only 14 pages it's extremely slim and weighs next to nothing. I plan to magnet it up onto the fridge or pin it to my corkboard. The flexible card cover lets the planner conform to the inside of your bag, but is sturdy and will easily stand up to a year of use.

The undated format allows you to start any month of the year, and goes for a full 12 months. These are great for tracking projects, and each team member can have their own copy so everyone knows deadlines and can track milestones.

I'll use one as a big academic-year calendar to plan out the whole school year and keep track of everyone's activities. I love that I can start it in July, which is hard to find in a monthly calendar, so that it will end in June at the end of the school year.

I'll use another one to track bills due and paid every month, and paydays for myself and my husband so we can budget each month. In the data spaces inside the back cover I can keep monthly totals for savings, checking, and credit cards. I'll paperclip bills to pay onto that month's page so I don't forget them.

There's a million possibilities for this simple but highly functional monthly calendar.

6 comments:

I wonder if you remember me, but back then I emailed you to ask about undated planners and followed your advice and ended up with an Uncalendar. I promised to let you know my thoughts and even though it's a little late (sorry!), here they are. I love almost everything about my full-size Uncalendar, except for 2 things: The full size turns out to be too big and can be inconvenient, as I sometimes wanna carry my planner on its own, for instance when I go for lunch. I can't do this with the full size Uncalendar. I also didn't use the "Worksheet" and Goal planning pages much, I figure I'd rather doodle and draw tables on a blank page than follow the format it already has. Overall, a very decent undated planner. Thank you for your recommendation.

Now I am actually moving back to Boston for grad school and plan on spending the next few days browsing your site for another planner recommendation! ;)

I have been going through your site and for now I am debating between the Planner Pad (executive size, spiral bound) and the Life Book that I commented on. I almost love everything about the Life Book except it would be shipped from outside the US and also I just figured that the holidays listed there will be UK holidays.

I have no complaint against the Planner Pad, I just wish the design could be more exciting, maybe this is because I am so impressed with the appearance of Life Book! Any advice? Thanks :)

Hi Lavy, the Organised Mum life book and the Planner Pad are so different from each other, I think it's safe to say that one will definitely work better for you than the other, it's just a matter of figuring out which that will be.

You are right, Organised Mum planners only have the UK holidays. I have suggested they include US holidays too, but they said they will not because they don't want to clutter up the day spaces. Anyway, there are only 4 lines per day which will not be enough space for you in grad school.

Personally, I think the Planner Pad will work better for you. The daily columns will help you organize your time, and the lists places at the top of the page will help you get everything you need to do out on the page and then allow you to organize it. Planner Pad does have month calendars, and notes pages for your budgeting etc. I recommend you get their optional month tabs too, so you can easily flip to each month. The Planner Pad appearance is very businesslike, which can be boring, but the good news is the paper is very thick so if you wanted to decorate the pages with gel pens or similar, it can take it.

Another planner that will work very well for you in grad school is the Quo Vadis Septanote, which has daily columns, notes space for each day, and weekly lists right on the weekly pages. There's monthly columns in an annual overview to help you plan ahead for assignments and exams. You can choose a colored cover. You can see my review here:

You are going to need all the planning power you can get in grad school, so be sure to pick a planner that will work for you even if it's not pretty. You can always decorate it! If you get a planner that doesn't have big enough day spaces or the right format, you will struggle with it all year.

Thanks so much Laurie! You're the best! I will probably go with the Planner Pad. You're right, now that I think about it, I do like the task list at top of each page a lot :) I think I will also order the month tab that you recommended as well as the clear back pocket.

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I'm not posting very often here on Plannerisms because I post 4 days per week over on Quo Vadis blog. There I post on time management, goal setting, writing, journaling, new product reviews and more. www.QuoVadisBlog.com

Here on Plannerisms I post other planner and notebook reviews, general planning topics, and later in the year I'll have more info on the 2017 Plannerisms planners.

Thanks for reading!

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